The CIA's "Global Cooling" Files
n00 b
"A Study of Climatological Research as it Pertains to Intelligence Problems",
written by the CIA for 'internal planning purposes' in August 1974
5 December 2009
QUOTE: Mentions of a global cooling consensus appear as far back as 1961.
QUOTE: This might be the most important lesson of the 1974 report on global
cooling:
that we need to grow up, separate climatology from fear, and recognise -
much as it pains politicians and scientists - that our understanding of how
climate changes remains in its infancy.
The threat of a new ice age loomed so large in 1974 that American
intelligence collated a report on the likely effects. Maurizio Morabito
unearthed it
A high-priority government report warns of climate change that will lead to
floods and starvation. 'Leading climatologists' speak of a 'detrimental
global climatic change', threatening 'the stability of most nations'.
The scenario is eerily familiar although the document - never made public
before - dates from 1974. But here's the difference: it was written to
respond to the threat of global cooling, not warming.
And yes, it even mentions a 'consensus' among scientists.
'A Study of Climatological Research as it Pertains to Intelligence Problems',
written by the CIA for 'internal planning purposes' in August 1974, goes a
little way towards explaining why some people over a certain age experience
a sense of d�j�-vu when climate change is mentioned; in the mid-1970s there
really was a lot of scientific discussion about global cooling.
With the benefit of hindsight, reading it makes one feel wry and
embarrassed.
So many of the terms bandied about 35 years ago are still being employed by
today's fear-mongers, about the very opposite phenomenon.
It is as if climate scares had to follow a set pattern.
Back in 1974 the usual disasters were projected:
the 'new climatic era' was said to be bringing famine, starvation, refugee
crises, floods, droughts, crop and monsoon failures, and all sorts of
extreme weather phenomena. The Sahara would expand. World grain reserves,
already at less than a month's supply, would be depleted.
A list of past civilisations brought down by 'major and minor' cooling
episodes was given, which included the Indus, Hittites, Mycenaean, and the
Mali empire of Africa.
Any possible benefits to climate change were barely mentioned.
More parallels can be drawn.
According to the CIA report, in 1974 climate science was developing 'a
successful climatic prediction model', as indeed it still is. Government
intervention had brought together eminent scientists who had previously been
at odds with each other then had established a 'scientific consensus' on
'global climate change'.
The scientists claimed this pattern of cooling would cause 'major economic
problems around the world'. Dealing with this would, of course, require the
creation of several new government agencies.
The media at the time seized on all of this, just as it is doing now.
Newsweek and the New York Times described the global cooling threat.
How is it that the parallels between that 1970s panic and today's have been
so little remarked upon?
And it doesn't stop there.
There have even been recent attempts to label the 'global cooling consensus'
a 'myth', most notably in a well-publicised article by Thomas C. Peterson,
William M. Connolley, and John Fleck published by the American
Meteorological Society in September 2008.
Well, plus �a change.
It's easy to miss what you do not look for.
Mentions of a global cooling consensus appear as far back as 1961.
I found the CIA report referred to in a 1976 newspaper article and was
doubly amazed to discover it was available as a microfiche in the British
Library.
So what would have prompted the CIA to compile such a dossier?
The most likely explanation is what it describes as the loss of 'a
significant portion' of the USSR's winter wheat crop in 1972. The harvest
was so poor that the CIA saw geopolitical ramifications. Its report says
that 'the politics of food' is a complex business, which cannot be
understood by 'existing analytical tools'.
So to address a political problem, they asked scientists to come up with a
solution. Precisely the same thing is happening today. One might almost
conclude that, in the world of climatology, theories are made to order.
Or is the problem with the general public, who cannot talk about climate
except in doom-laden terms, and for whom the sky is the last animist god?
This might be the most important lesson of the 1974 report on global
cooling:
that we need to grow up, separate climatology from fear, and recognise -
much as it pains politicians and scientists - that our understanding of how
climate changes remains in its infancy.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/5592803/the-cias-global-cooling-files.thtml
Warmest Regards
Bon_0
"It is a remarkable fact that despite the worldwide expenditure of perhaps
US$50 billion since 1990, and the efforts of tens of thousands of scientists
worldwide, no human climate signal has yet been detected that is distinct
from natural variation."
Bob Carter, Research Professor of Geology, James Cook University, Townsville
Surfer
>
>The threat of a new ice age loomed so large in 1974 that American
>intelligence collated a report on the likely effects. Maurizio Morabito
>unearthed it
>
That fact that someone needed to "unearth" the report, suggests that
the ice age was never considered sufficiently imminent to warrent
warning the public about it.
A theoretical reason for cooling is described here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
<Start extract>
Milankovitch Theory describes the collective effects of changes in the
Earth's movements upon its climate, named after Serbian civil engineer
and mathematician Milutin Milankovic'. Milankovic' mathematically
theorised that variations in eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession
of the Earth's orbit determined climatic patterns on Earth.
<snip>
Since orbital variations are predictable[10], if one has a model that
relates orbital variations to climate, it is possible to run such a
model forward to "predict" future climate.
<snip>
An often-cited 1980 study by Imbrie and Imbrie determined that,
"Ignoring anthropogenic and other possible sources of variation acting
at frequencies higher than one cycle per 19,000 years, this model
predicts that the long-term cooling trend which began some 6,000 years
ago will continue for the next 23,000 years."[11]
<End extract>
So without AGW, the earth would be cooling, but at a rate that would
take 23,000 years for the full effects of an ice age to be reached.
It would be nice if AGW was just enough to balance this.
But unfortunately, it goes too far the other way:
Arctic sea ice extent is decreasing as measured each December at a
rate of -3.3% per decade.
(See graph at right)
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/
Larger image here
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/n_plot_hires.pn
Global sea level is rising at 3.3 mm/year
http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/
Sea level rise is associated with the thermal expansion of sea water
due to climate warming and widespread melting of land ice.
The average rate of sea level rise has increased as follows:
1870 - 1990 1.7 mm/year
1990 - 2009 3.3 mm/year
The thinning of a gigantic glacier in Antarctica is accelerating
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090814100105.htm